Have you ever seen a teacher that students seem to gravitate towards? The teacher whose door is always open and a ray of almost tangible positivity are glowing from it. Maybe it’s the teacher who gives out snacks and high fives or the teacher that’s always ready with a compliment, or even the bouncy teacher who seems to have an endless supply of energy. No matter who you envisioned, there’s one reason above all the others that makes students, and possibly even their own co-workers, gravitate towards them: they love their job.
Teachers who love what they do really stand out because their joy is infectious. Even on their hardest days, with their most trying students, you never doubt their passion for their job. These are the types of teachers who seem to have their classroom management under control, their classroom culture is a safe place for everyone, and the majority of their students rarely have a mean word to say about them. The reason that all this happens is simple. When you enjoy your job, your students enjoy you.
Your mindset creates a droplet effect on your students. Consider this: when you enjoy teaching, you are more prone to being positive. When your thinking is more positive, your actions become more positive. You give out more compliments, smile more, and make more time for relationship building. Then your students see you as a positive teacher that not only cares about teaching content, but most importantly, sees them as human beings and not just kids.
Too many times students feel like their teachers don’t care about them as people. Students can often feel like their teacher either doesn’t notice them, doesn’t like them, or only teaches them because it’s their job. Imagine going through the majority of your day feeling undervalued as a person. It would be emotionally exhausting. If you then add on the adult expectations we put on kids from a young age, it can be easy to see why students have a more difficult time retaining lessons.
Our students have basic human needs that need to be met before they can learn. It’s by learning to meet the needs of your students that you can truly harness the power of play. While it’s true that you may not be able to give your students meals, clothes, and a safe place to sleep, you can meet one of their most overlooked needs, the need for fun through play. Your students need the fun that play brings. They need to have an environment where it’s okay for them to be the children that they are. No matter what grade you teach, from pre-k all the way to seniors in high school, your students are children.
It’s unfair for us to expect our students to sit still complete assignments for hours on end with no break. In fact, doing this will not only drain your students, but it will also drain you. You need to have fun while you teach as much as your students.
Having fun and engaging lessons will remind you that you enjoy teaching. Even if you can’t devote an entire class period to play, you can incorporate fun into every lesson, assessment, or activity. You will be amazed by the way your classroom is revolutionized by incorporating elements of play into your daily classroom rhythms and routines. In fact, harnessing the power of play in your classroom can look different depending on the lesson and engagement you would like your students to have. You don’t have to do the same things every day. With this blog, I hope to share a myriad of ways to harness the power of play in the classroom.
Are you familiar with play-based pedagogy? Have you checked out Harvard’s Project Zero? Let me know how you’ve been able to add play to your lesson cycle?
